The Curse of Chalion

Amidst the decaying splendor and poisonous intrigue of Chalion's ancient capital, Cazaril is forced to confront not only powerful enemies but also the malignant curse that clings to the royal household, trapping him, flesh and soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death for as long as he dares walk the five-fold pathway of the gods.

The Sharing Knife, Volume 1: Beguilement

Young, pregnant Fawn Bluefield has just fled her family's farm to the city of Glassforge, where she encounters a patrol of the enigmatic soldier-sorcerers known as Lakewalkers. Fawn has heard stories about the Lakewalkers, who are wandering necromancers with no permanent homes and no possessions except the clothes they wear and the mysterious knives they carry. What she does not know is that the Lakewalkers are engaged in a perilous campaign against inhuman and immortal magical entities known as "malices".

Falling Free

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong, and move on to the next job. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat, where a group of humanoids had been secretly, commercially bioengineered for working in free fall. Could he just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation?

Proto Zoa: Five Early Short Stories

Protozoa is a word from biology via the Greek, meaning "first animals". These short stories were indeed among the first life spontaneously generated in Lois McMaster Bujold's nascent writing career. Along with an introduction by the author, this collection features the short stories "Barter", "Garage Sale", "The Hole Truth", "Dreamweaver's Dilemma", and "Aftermaths".

Crosstalk

In a not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure that has been promised to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. So when Briddey Flannigan's fiancé proposes that he and Briddey undergo the procedure, she is delighted! Only, the results aren't quite as expected. Instead of gaining an increased empathetic link with her fiancé, Briddey finds herself hearing the actual thoughts of one of the nerdiest techs in her office. And that's the least of her problems.

At the Sign of Triumph: Safehold, Book 9

The Church of God Awaiting's triumph over Charis was inevitable. Despite its prosperity, the Charis was a single, small island realm. It boasted less than two percent of the total population of Safehold. How could it possibly resist total destruction? The Church had every reason to be confident of a swift, crushing victory, an object lesson to other rebels.

Closer to the Chest: The Herald Spy, Book Three

Herald Mags, the King of Valdemar's Herald-Spy, has been developing a clandestine network of young informants who operate not only on the streets of the capital city of Haven but also in the Great Halls and kitchens of the wealthy and highborn. In his own established alternate personas, Mags observes the Court and the alleys alike, quietly gathering information to keep Haven and the Kingdom safe.

Alliance of Equals: Liaden Universe: Arc of the Covenants, Book 2

Beset by the angry remnants of the Department of the Interior, challenged at every turn by opportunists on their new homeworld of Surebleak, and somewhat low on funds, Clan Korval desperately needs to reestablish its position as one of the top trading clans in known space. To this end, Master Trader Shan yos'Galan, aboard Korval's premier trade ship, Dutiful Passage, is on a mission to establish new business associations and to build a strong primary route that links well with existing Loops and secondary routes.

Shadow of Victory

Sometimes things don't work out exactly as planned. The Mesan Alignment has a plan - one it's been working on for centuries. A plan to remake the galaxy and genetically improve the human race - its way. Until recently things have gone pretty much as scheduled, but then the Alignment hit a minor bump in the road called the Star Empire of Manticore. So the Alignment engineered a war between the Solarian League, the biggest and most formidable interstellar power in human history.

Project Elfhome: Elfhome, Book 5

Pittsburgh: a sprawling modern Earth city stranded in the heart of a virgin forest on Elfhome. Sixty thousand humans, 20,000 black-winged tengu, 10,000 elves, an unknown number of invading oni, four unborn siblings of an elf princess, three dragons, and a pair of nine-year-old geniuses. For every story written, there's a thousand others not told. Lives interweave. Fates intersect. People change one another, often without realizing the impact they've made on others. They come together like a mosaic.

Aidee Campa says:"Loved the Concept and Execution, Even with the Loose Ends"

Cast in Flight: Chronicles of Elantra, Book 12

Private Kaylin Neya already has Dragons and Barrani as roommates. Adding one injured, flightless Aerian to her household should be trivial. Sure, the Aerian is Sergeant Moran dar Carafel, but Kaylin's own sergeant is a Leontine, the definition of growly and fanged. She can handle one Aerian. But when a walk to the Halls of Law becomes a street-shattering magical assassination attempt on the sergeant, Kaylin discovers that it's not the guest who's going to be the problem.

A Study in Sable: Elemental Masters, Book 11

Psychic Nan Killian and Medium Sarah Lyon-White - along with their clever birds: the raven, Neville; and the parrot, Grey - have been agents of Lord Alderscroft, the Elemental Fire Master known as the Wizard of London, since leaving school. Now Lord Alderscroft assigns them another commission: to work with the famous man living at 221 Baker Street - but not the one in flat B. They are to assist the man living in flat C. Dr. John Watson and his wife, Mary, themselves Elemental Masters of Water and Air, take the occult cases John's more famous friend disdains.

Dragonsong: Harper Hall Trilogy, Volume 1

Dragonsong is the spellbinding tale of Menolly of Half Circle Hold, a brave young girl who flees her seaside village and discovers the legendary fire lizards of Pern. All her life, Menolly has longed to learn the ancient secrets of the Harpers, the master musicians of Harper Hall. When her stern father denies her the chance to make her dream come true, Menolly runs away from home. Hiding in a cave by the sea, she finds nine magical fire lizards who join her on a breathtaking journey to Harper Hall.

Magic Binds: Kate Daniels, Book 9

Mercenary Kate Daniels knows all too well that magic in post-Shift Atlanta is a dangerous business. But nothing she's faced could have prepared her for this.... Kate and the former Beast Lord Curran Lennart are finally making their relationship official. But there are some steep obstacles standing in the way of their walk to the altar.... Kate's father, Roland, has kidnapped the demigod Saiman and is slowly bleeding him dry in his never-ending bid for power.

Star Nomad: Fallen Empire, Book 1

The Alliance has toppled the tyrannical empire. It should be a time for celebration, but not for fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko. After barely surviving a crash in the final battle for freedom, she's stranded on a dustball of a planet, billions of miles from her young daughter. She has no money or resources, and there are no transports heading to Perun, her former home and the last imperial stronghold. But she has a plan.

Curse on the Land: Soulwood, Book 2

Before Nell Ingram met skinwalker Jane Yellowrock, she had no one to rely on, finding strength only in her arcane connection to the dark woods around her. But now she has friends in the newly formed PsyLED team to keep her grounded - even if being part of the agency responsible for policing paranormals comes with dangers of its own.

The Edge of Worlds

An expedition of groundlings from the Empire of Kish have traveled through the Three Worlds to the Indigo Cloud court of the Raksura, shape-shifting creatures of flight that live in large family groups. The groundlings have found a sealed ancient city at the edge of the shallow seas, near the deeps of the impassable Ocean. They believe it to be the last home of their ancestors and ask for help getting inside.

Oath of Fealty

Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter follows her dream of becoming a hero out of legend by running away to join the army. Military life and warfare aren't anything like she imagined - yet she holds to both her duty and her dreams. Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold tell of her rise to become the paladin who saves a kingdom. In this new trilogy, Paks's former comrades in Duke Phelan's Company assume new roles and the story turns to follow their adventures.

Valor's Choice

In the distant future, humans and several other races have been granted membership in the Confederation - at a price. They must act as soldier/protectors of the far more civilized races who have long since turned away from war.

No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished: Heartstrikers, Book 3

When Julius overthrew his mother and took control of his clan, he thought he was doing right by everyone. But sharing power isn't part of any proper dragon's vocabulary, and with one seat still open on the new ruling council, all of Heartstriker is ready to do whatever it takes to get their claws on it, including killing the Nice Dragon who got them into this mess in the first place.

Foreigner: Foreigner Sequence 1, Book 1

The first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.

Forgotten Ages: The Complete Saga

The greatest military leader of his time. The most talented code breaker her people have. Sworn enemies. When deadly secrets from the ancient past are unearthed, secrets capable of fracturing the world and destroying all life on the planet, these two enemies will have to work together. They are humanity's only hope.

Uprooted

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for 10 years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

Nice Dragons Finish Last: Heartstrikers, Book 1

Audie Award, Fantasy, 2016. As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don't cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.

Publisher's Summary

Fiametta Beneforte dreamed of making beautiful and enchanted objets d'art, but alas her magician-goldsmith father was more likely to have her scrub the kiln than study magic. After all, it was a waste to train a mere daughter beyond the needs of the moment.

Thur Ochs dreamed of escaping the icy mines of Bruinwald. But the letter from his brother, Uri, arranging his apprenticeship to Master Beneforte was not the only force that drew him over the mountains to the Duchy of Montefoglia....

A betrayal at a banquet plunges Thur and Fiametta into a struggle against men who would use vile magic for vile ends. The needs of this desperate moment will require all their wits, all their talents, and all their courage, if they are to rescue both Montefoglia and the souls of those they most love.

What the Critics Say

"[An] enthralling dark fantasy set in Renaissance Italy, where the church regulates magic and licenses magicians.... In a perfectly natural manner, Bujold incorporates the concept of magic into this crisply paced, fully developed tale. She notes that Benvenuto Cellini served as the inspiration for the hugely talented, hugely egocentric Beneforte." (Publishers Weekly)

The Spirit Ring is clearly early Bujold, but loads of fun anyway - except that this reader is so over the top in her reading that I found it hard to listen to and may not finish it in spite of my loving Lois Bujold's work. There are odd pauses and cadences to the reading that seem to have nothing to do with the actual sentence being read. At one point a character wails something, and it's read like an Old Testament prophet thundering, rather than being the voice of terror and despair.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jessica Almasy?

Bernedette Dunn, who read The Sharing Knife books by Bujold would have done a better job of it.

Do you think The Spirit Ring needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

no, it's complete in itself.

Any additional comments?

Fantasy lovers should find a copy of this book to read - it's very good - but I'd appreciate any other reviewers who might have found different things in the narrator than I did.

Would you try another book from Lois McMaster Bujold and/or Jessica Almasy?

Lois McMaster Bujold, Yes. Jessica Almasy, No.

How could the performance have been better?

Possibly pre-reading the text? It seemed as though the narrator was reading the lines for the first time, much of the inflections and tones were off target. Regardless, I thought that another narrator would have been much better. Anna Fields?

I quite enjoyed the story. It's about a young girl who loses everything she has but matures into an adult while regaining what she can while defying cultural authority, convention and finds that true love doesn't have to be in the form of a shining knight.The narration at first was, for my ears, very childish. Before I got used to it the pipey, teenage female voice (albeit very suited to the age and sex of the main character) was quite distracting. But the work was well done and I did enjoy the book as a whole.

The story was also enjoyable, with enough twists and turns and creativity to build suspense and interest for the whole time.

This is an early work--not the Bujold who has since learned to keep us totally engaged and convinced, who surprises us with both her inventiveness and her underlying wisdom about human nature, its foibles and its glories. Her characteristic wit is here, and her plot, though quite simple, is well fashioned and reasonably satisfying in the end but, like MIles Vorkosigan in his youth, between the flashes of brilliance here there is a good deal that is unremarkable and sometimes even banal.

There is, however, still more than enough imaginative story telling and good humor to provide an entertaining and sometimes delightful read. This is especially true if you have read Cellini's "Autobiography," since Bujold recasts the old scoundrel in her tale to great effect, even including the casting of his great, bronze Perseus as a major plot point. What is more, her appropriation of Renaissance Italy as her setting for magical and political skulduggery is artful and entirely apt. (I wonder if this book inspired Dave Duncans‘s enjoyable series of magical adventure novels set in Venice during the same period.)

As other reviewers have mentioned, the narration is problematic. While Almasy’s enunciation is particularly clear and her energy is wonderful, she makes the protagonist sound like a bit of an airhead, and too often she mispronounces words or mangles the shape of a sentence. I agree that a much more thorough pre-reading was in order. It was particularly strange to hear her mispronounce one word in its first appearance and correct it in subsequent usages.

I liked how the characters all have major flaws. A clash between good and evil.

What about Jessica Almasy???s performance did you like?

nice voice

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

no.

Any additional comments?

The Christian themes in this book make it a bit awkward a more transparent battle between good and evil is shown, but at the same time it hints upon inquisition torture leaving the reader to wonder if there are in fact any good or evil in groups or just individual good and evil which is often compromised by organizations.

Yes, this is early Bujold, but she still shows the talent that has made her one of the best SF/fantasy authors writing today. The story moves quickly and the characters seem like real people. The latter is rare in the genre.

The narrator has a nasal and high pitched voice, which I never got used to. She's skilled enough, but is someone I'll avoid unless I really want to listen to a novel.

This woman is a magician! She's got to be one of the best contemporary writers out there. Humor, pathos, adventure, action... it's all there, waiting for you to experience. Jessica Almsly did a great job reading it.

Fiametta Beneforte, the young daughter of a magician/jeweler loses her father, and her home, to a vicious attack.This is the story of how she recovers and perserveres to discover her own magic, win her handsome husband, and defeat the evil men who killed her father. Good magic, likeable characters, despicable bad guys, and even a swayback white horse. All in all a delightful story, though without the depth of later Bujolds.

The reader, Jessica Almasy, is hardly my favourite reader, but in the end doesn't spoil the book for me. But a better reading would have pushed this up to 5 star overall.

I remember when I first read this book I gave up after a few chapters, then went back a year or so later and enjoyed it. It could be the same for some with this recording. The story at first is not particularly interesting; told initially from the point of view of a teenage girl who seems somewhat self obsessed. It is not helped by the narrator who has a girlish voice, puts her emphasis in very strange places in the sentence, bringing it to a complete stop, and sometimes mispronounces words. (unless Bujold really was writing about women's undergarments rather than a brazier)

The story and characters do however develop and either the narrator improves or I was able to ignore her better.

It is clearly early Bujold and is written for a younger readership, but you can see in there the development of the maturer writer and some of her incidental description, such as when Thur is sitting in the monastery garden talking to Fiametta, is quite lovely.

I can't help feeling that she used some of the ideas from this to develop for the Chalion books.

I can't give it full marks, but it's an enjoyable story with an exciting and unusual climax.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Amazon Customer

New Zealand

11/9/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Great story."

Great story, but I wasn't so impressed with the narrator. I love all Lois Bujold's stuff, but I do wish they'd chosen someone with a less annoying voice to read it.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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